14 Is A Powerful Number News

Virtually unknown CFR Cluj beat Roma 1-2 on the road in the UEFA Champions League yesterday! Wow!


CONCACAF Champions League News

Official CONCACAF website
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All televised games shown on FSC.
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Matches & Scores:
-Tue Sep 16
DC United 0-2 Saprissa - Sap goals by Walter Centeno & Jairo Arrieta.
Attendance: 6,105
Venue: RFK Stadium, Washington DC
Match report by John Haydon of the Washington Times.
Match report by Steven Goff of the Washington Post.
Post game notes and DC player ratings by Goff on his blog Soccer Insider.
San Francisco 1-1 UNAM Pumas - SF goal by Alberto Zapata. UNAM goal by Fernando Espinoza.
Puerto Rico Islanders 2-1 Tauro - PRI goals by Petter Villegas & Kendall Jagdeosingh. Tau goal by Edwin Aguilar.
-Wed Sep 17
Marathon v Cruz Azul
POSTPONED Houston Dynamo v Luis Angel Firpo - this game is being postponed for now due to the damage done in Houston by Hurricane Ike this past weekend. No word on a new date yet.
Santos Laguna v Municipal
Impact de Montreal v Joe Public - live at 6pm central
-Thu Sep 18
Atlante v Olimpia
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DC got flattened by the Purple Monster last night! And the chances they did have were all turned away by Saprissa keeper Keilor Navas. DC had resorted to Zach "Bambi" Wells in the goal, and he looked fragile.
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DC was also on the wrong end of the sharp pointy stick from that nasty referee who looks like a vampire, all night long. A Red Card given to Devin McTavish was just one of many weird overreacting calls that were made. He was calling fouls on people for just touching one another. But I will say he was consistent. And consistently creepy looking. Mexicans call him Chiquidracula.
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Jeff Carlisle of Soccernet expects the Mexican teams to dominate this tournament.
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MLS Scoreboard

Week 26
Matches & Scores:
-Thu Sep 18
Columbus v New York - 6pm central on ESPN2
Venue: Crew Stadium, Columbus OH
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League Standings
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MLS News

CHICAGO FIRE

Midfielder Marco Poppa is out a week to 10 days with a sprained left knee.
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CD CHIVAS USA

Midfielder and team leader Jesse Marsch had the wire taken out of his broken jaw. So is he ready to go? Maybe.
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COLORADO RAPIDS

Class VI has a Q & A with coach Gary Smith.
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COLUMBUS CREW

Shawn Mitchell of the Dispatch on his blog Covering The Crew with the latest news bits from around Crewsylvania.
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FC DALLAS

Buzz Carrick of 3rd Degree goes to FCD training and gives us his impression with this weeks Practice Observations. Great quotes from coach Schellas Hyndman.
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LOS ANGELES GALAXY

Martin Rogers of Yahoo Sports shows us how LA can make the playoffs.
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Puro Football with a look at the Galaxy managerial turmoil.
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RED BULL NEW YORK

Newly signed forward Macoumba Kandji has an ankle injury that will keep him out of action for as long as 2 weeks.
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Brian Lewis of the New York Post on his blog Extra Time talks to coach Juan Carlos Osorio about the importance of the game in Columbus on Thursday night. The coach calls it the biggest game of the season.
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Red Bulls prodigy Johnny Exantus has left the teams youth system and signed with a very small club in Belgium called Montegnee. They literally play in the 5th Division! Why would he go there? An interesting note on this team: Their roster shows 14 Americans & 12 Canadians playing for them right now. Huh? If you go to the teams website, the first thing you notice is that it is all written in English, which is odd for a Belgian team. And if you dig in a little, you realize that its more of an academy than a soccer club. I think they are in the business of training and then selling off players, preferably to clubs in England. They had a deal with Bradford City, but that is now over.
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REAL SALT LAKE

The Deseret News reports that this weekends game against Chivas will be RSL's last time ever on the hideous fake turf at Rice Eccles Stadium.
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SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES

Currently unbeaten in 9 straight games. That is the best run by any team in the league this season.
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TORONTO FC

Dean McNulty of the Sun says its now do or die for TFC.
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GENERAL

Andrew Hush at Soccernet with his weekly league notes.
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MLS Rumor City - Don't Tease Me Bro!

Scottish midfielder Brian Kerr is now on the TFC wish list for NEXT season.
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MLS Expansion News

The Ottawa Citizen with more on that city's bid for a MLS team. And here is their plan.
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The Ottawa Sun has 2 stories on the bid for a team as well. One - and - Two. (story two has video as well)
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Jack Bell of the New York Times blog Goal thinks MLS could be quickly headed toward 20 teams.
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USL First Division News

USL First Division Team Of The Week.
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Minnesota Thunder

Our forward Melvin Tarley was named USL-1 Player Of The Week. He scored 2 of the teams 4 goals against Charleston. Goalkeeper Nic Platter was also listed in the week's Best 11.
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USL First Division Scoreboard

Final Regular Season Matches & Scores:
-Wed Sep 17
Miami v Rochester
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Team USA

Frank Dell'apa at Soccernet feels the USA needs to step up the quality on offense to really compete.
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Goal.com has a list of players that they feel deserve a shot with the national team.
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USA U17 News

Mark Zeigler of the San Diego Union Tribune with an article on goalkeeper Earl Edwards.
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Soccer In America

Jack Bell of the New York Times with a cool story on a limo company in New York with employees from over 30 countries who all have the love of the beautiful game.
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Americans In Europe

The 5th and final chapter in Adam Spangler's incredible story of Clint Dempsey is now up at This Is American Soccer. If soccer magazine were half this good they would be worth reading. But sadly, most of the time, they are not even close.
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Greg Seltzer at Soccer365 says Clarence Goodson at Start in the Norwegian 2nd Division has been given a couple weeks "off" to heal up some injuries and go home to the USA and relax.
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Pete Grathoff of the Kansas City Star talks to Eddie Johnson about his new team in Cardiff, Wales.
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It'll be Tim Howard & Everton v Oguchi Onyewu & Standard on Thursday in the UEFA Cup!
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UPCOMING MATCHES

Americans in the First Round of the UEFA Cup - here are their 1st leg matches:
-Carlos Bocanegra - Rennes v Twente - Thu Sep 18
-Brad Friedel - Litex Lovech v Aston Villa - Thu Sep 18
-Brad Guzan - Litex Lovech v Aston Villa - Thu Sep 18
-Kamani Hill - Wolfsburg v Rapid Bucuresti - Thu Sep 18
-Tim Howard - Everton v Standard Liege - Thu Sep 18
-Jared Jeffrey - Young Boys v Club Brugge - Thu Sep 18
-Oguchi Onyewu - Everton v Standard Liege - Thu Sep 18
-Neven Subotic - Borussia Dortmund v Udinese - Thu Sep 18
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MOST RECENT MATCHES

UEFA Cup
-Bryan Arguez - Hertha Berlin - did not dress for the 2-0 win over Saint Patrick's Athletic.
-Ryan Guy - Saint Patrick's Athletic - played the full 90 in a losing effort, 2-0 at Hertha Berlin.
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Italian Serie B
-Danny Szetela - Brescia - went the distance in at 0-0 home draw against Treviso.
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English Championship
-Bobby Convey - Reading - came on as a 67th minute sub as the team won big, 6-0 at home over Sheffield Wednesday. Bobby came on after all the goals were already in the back of the net.
-Jay DeMerit - Watford - went the full 90 but lost 1-2 at home to Plymouth.
-Marcus Hahnemann - Reading - played all 90 minutes of a clean sheet 6-0 home victory over Sheffield Wednesday.
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CONCACAF World Cup Qualifying News

The Jamaica Observer reports that they will have an interim coach for the next two qualifiers, and then English sorta-legend John Barnes will take over as the new head coach.
-Barnes only managerial experience was coaching Celtic for 29 games back in 1999.
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Mexico & FMF News

Graciela Resendiz of Soccernet with a round up of the Primera division. Pumas takes over the league lead.
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USA Today with an article on the growing wealth and empire of Chivas of Guadalajara and owner Jorge Vergara.
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South American News

Tim Vickery of Sports Illustrated sees promising football coming from Ecuador again.
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England News

The Guardian looks at the growing number of Have-Nots in English Football. You have the uberwealthy, then you have the lower divisions.
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The Telegraph reports that American Stan Kroenke is about to be given a seat on the board of directors at Arsenal.
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The Telegraph also reports that UEFA are looking into a complaint filed against Croatian fans for racist chants directed at Emile Heskey during the game against England last week.
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World Soccer does a Q & A with new Chelsea manager Big Phil! Via Sports Illustrated.
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Sport Magazine has a Q & A with Manchester United legend-still-in-action Ryan Giggs.
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Let's try this again: Long time Chelsea striker (a journeyman lately) Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink has retired from the game.
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European News

SPAIN

Atletico will be without forward Diego Forlan for a month due to a strained thigh muscle.
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OTHERS

World Soccer wonders what has happened to the quality of the Dutch Eredivisie. Via Sports Illustrated.
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UEFA Champions League

Several road teams had big success yesterday, especially the nobodies from CFR Cluj who had never even been in the CL before. Amazing win for them over Roma!
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Jonathan Wilson of the Guardian wonders if we are seeing a grand new day for Dynamo Kyiv.
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Paul Doyle of the Guardian tells us that as good as Chelsea was yesterday, Bordeaux was just as equally bad.
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Group Stage -Matchday 1
Matches & Scores:
-Tue Sep 16
Chelsea 4-0 Bordeaux - Chel goals by Frank Lampard, Joe Cole, Florent Malouda & Nicolas Anelka.
Roma 1-2 CFR Cluj - Roma goal by Christian Panucci. CFR goals both by Juan Culio.
Panathinaikos 0-2 Inter Milan - IM goals by Mancini & Adriano.
Werder Bremen 0-0 Anorthosis
Basel 1-2 Shakhtar Donetsk - Bas goal by David Abraham. SD goals by Fernandinho & Jadson.
Barcelona 3-1 Sporting - Barc goals by Rafa Marquez, Samuel Eto'o(PK) & Xavi Hernandez. Spor goal by Tonel.
PSV Eindhoven 0-3 Atletico Madrid - AM goals by Kun Aguero(2) & Maniche.
Olympique Marseille 1-2 Liverpool - OM goal by Lorik Cana. Liv goals both by Steven Gerrard, one via PK.
-Wed Sep 17
Manchester United v Villarreal - live at 1:30pm central on ESPN2
Celtic v Aalborg
Steaua Bucuresti v Bayern Munich
Lyon v Fiorentina
Porto v Fenerbahce - delayed at 4:35pm central on Setanta USA
Dynamo Kyiv v Arsenal - live at 1pm central on Setanta USA
Juventus v Zenit St Petersburg - delayed at 6:30pm central on Setanta USA
Real Madrid v BATE Borisov - delayed at 4pm central on ESPN Classic
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-Matchday 2 is on Sep 30 & Oct 1
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UEFA Cup

First Round 1st leg matches started Tue Sep 16. Here is the full schedule.
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World News

Time Magazine with an article on the world wide financial crisis and how it can effect football, especially big money corporate sponsors. Via Sports Illustrated
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Sportsnet Canada has a Q & A with author Declan Hill who has written a new book with makes accusations of match fixing at World Cup 06 and beyond.